But still the music continued and Mrs Hathaway was obliged to say, ‘Actually, Herr Kirchner is not a Communist.’

Presently she was rebutting other constructions. One time it was Mrs Kirkpatrick, who, without saying anything of the sort herself, or even believing it, felt obliged to let Mrs Hathaway know that the Riddles were going about quite openly saying that the Hathaways were harbouring a German spy.185

‘There’s a lot going on in France Green, isn’t there,’ said Mrs Hathaway, moved to satire, ‘that Hitler would give his ears to know about?’

‘It isn’t so much what goes on,’ replied Mrs Kirkpatrick, ‘as what goes over. After all, we have Imperial Airways flying over us twice a day. And any amount of other planes.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hathaway, ‘if the Riddles have seen Herr Kirchner running out to count airplanes and then running out to the post office to send messages in code, they’ve seen more than I have. My trouble has been that I can’t get him to stir out of doors.’

‘But you wouldn’t expect him to, would you?’ said Mrs Kirkpatrick. ‘Spies have to conceal their movements.’

Mrs Hathaway began to feel that any movement from Emil, overt or covert, would be welcome. He did not care for gardening. He had no impulse to explore the countryside. Though he played tennis very well, he did not care for playing tennis. Throughout the summer he moped—there was no other word for it. He was polite. He was, when called upon, obliging. He played the piano, he took many baths. His stock of small talk kept up better than the Hathaways’, perhaps because he did not tax it so hard. The only person in the household with whom he seemed to feel at ease was Hannah. He spent a lot of time in the kitchen, helping Hannah with the vegetables and listening to her talk of cats she had known in the past, but even this attachment seemed questionable and might have been due to nothing more than an English summer and the fact that the kitchen was the only room in the house that had a fire in it.186

Refugee mentality, said Mrs Hathaway to herself. The phrase would have been more of a comfort to her if she had not been an honest and compassionate woman. As it was, she suffered a great deal, imagining how she would feel in a foreign land and among strangers. What was going on behind that high forehead? What words of melancholy and disillusionment did the small mouth shut back? She herself could hardly endure a week-end of paying a visit, and Emil had been at France Green for the whole summer and had never once crossed the moral frontiers of the spare room.

‘Well, that at any rate is something to admire,’ she said to her husband. ‘He’s not happy and he doesn’t try to be. He doesn’t like us and he doesn’t pretend to. I call that real integrity. I honour him for it.’